The Extinct Features of YouTube

[@zachstudios567]

One feature that bothered me when they removed it was community added closed captions. You used to be able to add closed captions in your language of chosing to any video that didn't have them. But now only the video uploader can add them otherwise its auto generated or auto translated.

[@ieatalgae]

This is the one that I'm still pissed about. There are SO MANY videos I want to give captions, but can't 💔

[@bjiru_]

I also loved this, people would put such unique captions too I remember pewdiepie videos with captions of **SCREAMS LIKE A LLAMA** it gave them personality sometimes, but more importantly opened up the video for any any anyone to watch

[@elhasgaming]

We could also correct shitty subtitles made by people who didn't know what they're doing, for instance the ones that arbitrarily limit the width so the line breaks get fucked up if you make them bigger, and the ones that split the dialogue in nonsensical places making it very difficult for an actual deaf person to understand and very difficult for the machines to translate to other languages.

[@tracark2255]

Those stickman videos had a bunch of those 😢 sad it’s all gone

[@ieatalgae]

@@tracark2255 They still exist. You just can't make new ones

[@robertpoole9707]

One thing I miss was when you could buffer out a video in its entirety and watch it completely uninterrupted. Now you can only buffer a little bit ahead

[@Snaily]

I remember loading videos for an hour and still having them buffer halfway through

[@asciicatface]

I used to have a 3rd party youtube app on my old ipod touch (it went through a LOT of different names), and you could buffer entire videos but only the audio portion. all I had to do was queue up a video maybe five minutes before I went out, and I could listen to entire albums on the busride to school or to the mall or something. it was so great and I miss it dearly.

[@Jekkin]

I'm sure there are browser extensions for stuff like that now

[@MrBrax]

Blame that on DASH

[@nothingelse1520]

pretty sure there is an extension to enable the old buffering instead of "just in time"

[@lovelydumpling]

Actually used to just say "301 views" but near the end it added the plus sign. For a long time people were just confused about the 301 views thing, till the numberphile video explained it. Speaking of easter eggs, that video is still frozen at 301 views to this day.

[@bjiru_]

ooooooh right yes, I became conscious more when the + was there, that is interesting

[@bobsmiththesecond8374]

LOL omg, I just looked up the video and that's true! And I already liked it apparently... awesome!

[@ricardoborunda]

Omg wait this is crazy

[@BibleChick-zo1kb]

301 views

[@OPLOmega]

Annotations Restored for KZbin is a good third party extension for bringing back annotations for older videos, which even if I don't go back to older stuff a lot of the time, is still useful because there are some videos I can't find anywhere else that basically require annotations for things like Subtitles that aren't hard embedded into the vid itself.

[@bjiru_]

oh yes! I was going to include a mention about it, but completely forgot, that is my bad

[@Marshimized]

woah. i wonder how the extension accesses that information, i would've thought youtube got rid of it completely

[@liraz747]

That's awesome! Had no idea this extension existed

[@SpongeSebastian]

​@Marshimized I'm guessing they archived the annotations before KZbin removed them

[@xd0v3rdoz3ALBA]

Project Vorapis also restores annotations, and it restores the late 2013 layout too.

[@ReuploadArchivist]

I miss KZbin DMs. You know KZbin sucks now when you miss random wannabe rappers sending you their mixtape.

[@Appletank8]

Now we gotta public message them in videos or posts! What fun /s

[@cara-seyun]

That feature was actual garbage

[@ktheone6000]

Does youtube sucks or was it always like this? Think about it

[@ReuploadArchivist]

@@ktheone6000 it sucks now and has been since 2015. Hell probably earlier with the google+ crap nobody asked for and died out for being shit.

[@bbofficialmusic]

"Fun? Variation? What does that even mean? Flat is where it's at!" - todays designers/ developers

[@FlameRat_YehLon]

Flat doesn't mean unfun. But it certainly takes a lot more work to make it fun, which most designers aren't capable of.

[@irixperson]

@@FlameRat_YehLon Flat design produces an inferior user interface.

[@FlameRat_YehLon]

@@irixperson Flat itself doesn't make things boring, not having a point does. A design can be flat but if it's easy to differenciate features and quickly find what's important, it can look just as interesting. But if it's done in a way that everything looks similar and hard to tell what is what, then it's bad. Skeumorphism has the benefit of not making it hard for human brain to understand what everything is, but it also provides too much unnecessary information to overwhelm the user, and thus is harder to read than a good flat design, especiall when there are too many things going on.

[@irixperson]

@ I didn't say that flat design is necessarily boring; it produces an inferior user interface. Even if the interface succeeds in differentiating features while maintaining the flat design, the actual functionality is hampered, especially in complex applications. A design system should not hamper on functionality in order to appear stylish. Indeed, this is also a pointed criticism of skeuomorphism, however "flat" and "skeuomorphic" are not the sum all of user interface design. On the other hand, one might argue that the very representation of real-world comparisons within computer applications is a form of skeuomorph. It is almost always better for users to be overwhelmed rather than underwhelmed, especially with regards to interface design. Companies have also done an excellent job of explaining the radical change in user interface design as being part of a new design system, when in reality, it simply requires less effort to formulate a "flat" design system for an application. (CSS people should be able to vouch for this. Back in the old days, we were using raster images for buttons and background tiles and things. Most, if not all, design elements on KZbin can now be produced using pure CSS.)

[@Pierreandandre]

Sign of the times. Exactly the same thing current developers of fast food buildings are doing.

[@theodricaethelfrith]

Not only did I dislike Google+, I am *STILL* bitter that they used its launch as a reason to disable the + operator on Google searches. Did you know that you used to be able to +include +mandatory +search +terms in the same way that you can still -exclude -unwanted -ones today? When they removed the operator, they broke the way that search worked. Their suggested alternative of "enclosing" "in" "quotes" does not work exactly the same, and it also makes zero sense: "" is NOT the opposite of -!

[@elhasgaming]

And still nobody knows how the bloody thing can be commanded properly because they never taught us how the bastard thing works. I didn't even know you could use dashes to remove shit you didn't wanna see.

[@LegenDairy973]

I always wondered why I couldnt exclude terms anymore!!

[@chem-z9718]

What is the difference between quotes and pluses?

[@elhasgaming]

Speech marks don't make a difference at all, and plus signs apparently did.

[@pablodelgado7919]

Looking back on it, it's surprising how accesing friendly and less restrictive youtube was back then and to me KZbin was like a another Myspace of sorts when it came to the page customizations, spending pretty much my entire middle school days just watching YTP's and a lot of random stuff without a care in the world. Nowadays those fun days when youtube had some "soul" on it were slowly dissapearing over time and became so restrictive over everything, hell even some of the comments that you do get shadow banned for absolutely no reason. KZbin has become so dull in so many ways in the last decade, just like everything else out there.

[@bjiru_]

The internet in general, it sucks so much. I am right there with you, I spend so much time customizing my page to be just as I wanted it, and looking at the crazy creations other people have made. It makes me so mad the restrictiveness of even just the comment section as you said, just things like saying "die" or "kill" can get your comment slowly pushed under the rug. It sucks, even making this video, there were a good couple "fucks" or "shit!"s I took out for fear of being blacklisted in the algo

[@pablodelgado7919]

@bjiru_ Yeah, that really sucks man. It seems like nobody are able to speak on what they want nowadays out of fear or backlash. The internet of today has become so minimalistic and restrictive on so many areas that makes you wonder "why am i even here if there's nothing remotely fun or interesting to do anymore" i really miss when things at least in terms of designs and aesthetic were more vibrant and colorful, now all you see is so monotone and lifeless. What the hell happened?

[@westerngroovetv]

What i miss most about KZbin back in the day compared to now is small channels. Relatively speaking im an og. I started using KZbin in 2006. So to me the golden age was 2008-2011. But anyways, back then, the algorithm if any wasn't really about making the site money. It was about connecting you with the content that you searched for. So it didn't matter the size of the channel when getting your search results. So of course i followed some big channels which were mostly all comedy channels back then. But i also followed a bunch of small channels that were literally other kids around my age making videos about the subject i had searched for. And there were small niche communities on KZbin built around this concept. Where even tho these channels might not have over 1k subscribers. They knew of each other and it's viewers knew of all of them. I think this could come back in a certain way. But greed destroys and once these companies become purpose built for greed it's hard to course correct.

[@pablodelgado7919]

@westerngroovetv i was the same as well too and i still am today. While i followed a lot of big channels, to me most of the unique content came from smaller channels that were doing this for fun and to connect with people that were out there and that audience that enjoyed and supported that niche content. KZbin has evolved in a way that nowadays is rather rare to find good content from unknown small channels that's being constantly drowned among tons and tons of garbage content and that is somewhat saddening.

[@Seed]

Fun Fact: Backgrounds and some other customisation elements still exist on YT’s servers. :)

[@Seed]

Also! There’s an extension to restore most of the old annotations :)

[@DJ-Dashy]

Names?!​@@Seed

[@Seed]

@ Think the one to restore annotations was literally just called "Restore KZbin Annotations", and for the other thing I built an API to grab them a while back but it's down at the moment.

[@Evie]

Google never deletes anything

[@irixperson]

@@Evie Neither does Microsoft, or IBM for that matter. You can still download 25+ year old games for a deprecated server operating system off the IBM fileserver.

[@theov527]

your editing is amazing dude

[@bjiru_]

tysm theov527

[@KamiraCP]

Didn't matpat quit? Why is he still uploading? 😂😂 Did he get lost all his money already? Lol

[@xspectwastaken]

ai generated response detected ​@@bjiru_

[@idk2999]

░░░░░███████ ]▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ Bob is building an army. ▂▄▅█████████▅▄▃▂ ☻/︻╦╤─ This tank & Bob are against Google+ Il███████████████████]. /▌ Copy and Paste this all over ◥⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙◤.. / \ KZbin if you are with us

[@MetalJuggaloYTP]

░░░░░███████ ]▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ I'm dying internally ▂▄▅█████████▅▄▃▂ ☻/︻╦╤─ Il███████████████████]. /▌ ◥⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙◤.. / \

[@atsizbalik]

HE GOT A GUN???

[@CharlesReinmuth]

Dang, I remember this being everywhere. I guess Bob prevailed.

[@luigi8x8]

this video made me find out that typing 'awesome' to make the youtube timeline rainbow doesnt 100% work anymore because of the color redesign IM SO SAD (edit: changed "doesnt work anymore" to "doesnt 100% work anymore" . thats what i meant originally)

[@MikoriChan]

As of typing this comment, it does work, but it's very borked. I have an extension that allows me to customize the playbar's color, and upon typing "awesome" it switches back to the supposed original playbar when it's supposed to display the rainbow easter egg. The code is still there, it just doesn't work like it's supposed to anymore.

[@EndertX150]

@@MikoriChan what's the extension?

[@ArtyIF]

it works for me. i didn't get the color redesign yet

[@akitahaku1447]

for me the little dot blinks rainbow as well as the HD symbol over the settings gear

[@iimZeon]

@EndertX150 I think they're using Enhancer for KZbin. I also have a custom playbar color, but I'm not 100% confident that its what they're using

[@rolfathan]

I cannot stand that technology and web design has advanced SO MUCH and somehow, we get to customize less stuff than we did, not just on youtube, but on EVERYTHING. It feels like more websites are just the same than ever. It makes no sense. Also, I'm the rare weirdo that loved Google+ as just a facebook replacement. But I 100% did not want it linked to my KZbin account either, and that just killed it for me.

[@irixperson]

Because web design hasn't really "advanced" - though it has changed - and we are living in a period where the Internet has been fully corporatized.

[@NoName-ik2du]

What drives me nuts is the lack of customization of the web browsers themselves. You can still do a little bit, but nowhere near what you could do fifteen years ago.

[@energeticyellow1637]

You can thank smart phones for that. The whole reason why the web has been simplified and dumbed down is so it'll look and function better on a smart phone.

[@irixperson]

​ @energeticyellow1637 Smart phones have been used as an excuse to simplify websites. It's entirely possible to create a complex application which translates directly to smart phones. Simple websites have greater scalability. They require less effort, thus making them cheaper.

[@irixperson]

@@energeticyellow1637 Smart phone compatibility has been readily used as an excuse to minimize the functionality of web applications. It's entirely possible to create a complex application which directly translates to smart phones. Simple websites have greater scalability. They require less effort, thus making them cheaper. The expectations of a smart phone application are really pitiful and they should at least exceed that of the desktop applications we had in the 90's with all of the compute power they now have.

[@Flint404]

I really miss the "Collections" feature. You could group channels you're subscribed to into lists and have it's own feed for each list. It was great. Now we have only the Subscriptions feed which is lame.

[@MetroAndroid]

I think I also saw it called 'Subscriber Groups'. I had one for Music, one for Tech, one for Gaming... it was really cool, and now only third party apps can replicate it.

[@Flint404]

@@MetroAndroid Check out how out of touch their announcement of this was "On 5/20/15 we'll discontinue collections, as we'll focus on other efforts to make your subscriptions even more enjoyable."

[@lost0365]

wait i'm a big fan of indie animation and i literally made an entirely new account for this, if this was still here i'd love to have one for all my anuimation

[@Flint404]

@@lost0365 My previous reply was deleted. Let's try again. There is an browser extension called P0cket Tub e. It does pretty much the same thing.

[@Flint404]

@@lost0365 Okay so there is a browser extension that does this, but when I write its name KZbin deleted my comment twice.

[@JamesR624]

Aww, you forgot the pony easter egg. Yes, KZbin used to have an easter egg where if you searched for any of the names of the characters from My Little Pony G4, like "Twilight Sparkle" or "Rainbow Dash", the seek bar would be replaced in the video with a stylized version with that character as the theme. This was also around the same time they had a secret command in Google Hangouts where if you'd type '/pony' into the compose message box, then a bunch of pixelated ponies would walk across your chat window. I think there were many bronies employed at Google around that time.

[@bjiru_]

there were just many bronies employed at every company at the time hahahaha, I CANNOT BELEIVE I DIDNT INCLUDE THIS ONE!!! I didnt know about it tell now! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[@Generic-Internet-User666]

I miss the old google hangouts Easter eggs 😭😭 I'm glad someone else actually remembers them!!

[@asciicatface]

yooooo that's so cool! curses I wasn't into pony back then

[@Antleredangelbun]

google+ was where i got into rp and it started with mlp community

[@soracarrot]

Omg I remember this!

[@gpoop23]

The first time I heard someone talking about "KZbin" and asked "What's that?" he described it as "a site where you can watch any TV show or anime totally free". Those were the days.

[@bjiru_]

Ooooh I remember, I was very young for the 0 copyright days but I was there too

[@quinnjohnson9750]

I miss the old YT, I miss those good old days :( I have been happy that we have been getting videos from 15, 16, to even 17 years ago and being able to relive what the old website use to be from what I remember. Back in what I term the "Golden Age of KZbin" from 2006-2012 videos were about people goofing around, making funny stuff and people sharing their passions. The old YT of my childhood is now an alien concept compared to the current state of YT as we know it and the same goes for the current state of the Internet. I never grew up in the stone age of the 90s Internet but I did grow up in the wild period of the 2000s Internet and it felt organic, free and real, like anything was possible and that we could freely express ourselves and now the current Internet is a dead, stale, limited corporate controlled entity.

[@bjiru_]

I often ponder the same thing, wondering how much of it is childhood nostalgia and how much is genuine critique of the current internet and more often then not I've decided that it is some nostalgia maybe... but A LOT of the internet just being so shit now. We ae genuinely so so lucky to have experienced the wild wild west days of the internet back then. But at the same time. It could still be that way. The internet doesn't have to be this consolidated, 5 website, sterile, corporates verse. It can be good again, I just don't know how to take it there..

[@westerngroovetv]

"Golden Age of KZbin" from 2006-2012 videos were about people goofing around, making funny stuff and people sharing their passions. This is my biggest gripe with KZbin. And i explain it to ppl who weren't deep into KZbin back then and they don't get it because they've only interacted with these huge algorithms.. I try to express to them how great it was to search for something on KZbin and instead of ONLY getting results for large ad friendly channels. Or large ad friendly videos. You just got organic results based off what you searched for. There were so many channels i was subscribed to that had maybe a couple hundred subscribers if that. And they posted videos because those niche communities of small channels could actually find each other through the search bar. The recommend section while on the video showed channels even if they were small so you'd end up going down a web of 8 channels with no more than a couple hundred subscribers but they were making content about whatever it is you searched for originally. Nowadays the recommend on a video is mostly stuff that has nothing to do with the video I'm on because KZbin is just trying to push me over to a large ad friendly video. Back in the day where you could search for instance.. how to make a sling shot. And the next day search the same thing, track back in the search to the last video you watched and then watch all the videos that's been uploaded since. Man, i miss those times. Not just because nostalgia. But because it made it possible to form community. Keep up to date with a specific topic. And because people videos could be seen even by their small community of ppl with the same interest they uploaded videos. Nowadays if you create content for something niche.. give it the exact title of what that niche thing is.. then go on another device and search for that content KZbin will push on you.. yeah imma say it again.. large ad friendly vevo music videos without ever showing the video you uploaded. Sad

[@AustinRomaaan]

When I was probably 12, I remember making a point and click adventure game on youtube that was pokemon themed. It's kinda wild to think about how much more creative the site as a whole felt back in the late 2000s/early 2010s

[@SonicatYT]

This has GOT to be one of the most underrated channels ever

[@Ja_Crispyyy]

FR

[@rydog64]

Didn't glow at my end 16:37

[@matticolo]

When I was a kid, my dad used to tell me: “do not click anything on the video, because popups could be scams”, and for years I haven’t realised he was talking about annotations 😭

[@Aeolous1]

he couldve also been talking about popup ads.

[@gui18bif]

Video responses were either - spam - people lipsincing - people who didnt know how to use the feature - spam - foreign videos

[@westerngroovetv]

This was more true for larger content creators or popular videos. But back then KZbin didn't try to force feed you large ad friendly channels. So for instance back in the day i looked at air rifle videos a lot. And the video responses were not bullshit.. if someone was having an issue you'd see a video response where someone who had the same issue resolved it gave the fix. It was like this for a lot of smaller niche communities. Admittedly nowadays with the bots it would probably be an issue regardless of channel or video size.

[@MrRcn23]

@@westerngroovetv This! It might not have been relevant for everyone, but back then niche youtube was way stronger and way more social. KZbin "celebrities" didn't make up most of the website as they do now, everyone was sort of just uploading their stuff.

[@CaldinovinArchive]

Oh man do I remember these! I used to love the customisation options KZbin had. Some people were very creative, using channel templates and stuff. What I also loved was the KZbin Inbox, being able to send people PMs, share videos, friend/contact requests, etc. I also remember the Video Response function where I remember people using it for memes (back in the day called fads and fad responses). And of course that good old Star Rating. I miss it all so dearly. :'(

[@bjiru_]

I do aswell.. obviously lol, customization really just hits me the most, I wish I could do so much more to all my places of the internet

[@CaldinovinArchive]

@@bjiru_ There are some extensions on browsers like Firefox and Chrome that help you change the layout of KZbin back to a recreation of the older layouts. I actually am using one right now called CustomTube. The older layouts are a bit broken but atleast its something. And yeah about Customization, people really do need to start allowing more customization options on their sites. Its 2025 for god sake and technology is better than ever, they cannot tell us they can't do something like this anymore. I atleast want my darn comment section on my channel back. lol

[@thonkbot]

hello caldinovin

[@HomelessPank]

I love that we all still deadname twitter

[@TrashHeapCustodian]

Anybody who calls twitter X is a cop

[@ebanksstudios]

Kids today will never get the feeling of finding the easter egg in a video that would take you to a secret video

[@ktheone6000]

Dont blame the kids

[@Radiil]

anyone remember how difficult it was to have a channel name that was just one word after google+ rolled out?

[@funkytime69]

i remember so much

[@josephsheldon8582]

Yeah you had to have a first name and last name

[@JinteiModding]

6:51 I still remember "playing" a hot wheels game here on youtube, it used the annotations to customize your car by using a ton of different short vids for every possible option, very nostalgic and sad thag it doesnt work anymore. It was really fun and hella creative

[@SatanSavedMe]

That actually sounds kinda cool.

[@Neptunianwave]

12:50 it makes your timeline rainbow

[@peppermintpup3271]

i miss when you typed in "ponies" into youtube search and a bunch of my little ponies would run across the screen

[@bjiru_]

theres been a couple people mention the ponies easter egg I cannot believe I didn't include it 😭😭

[@Micah_YT]

I feel like it was removed for some stupid "oh non MLP fans aren't gonna understand" reason

[@holytrainish]

youtube more like LAMEtube,,, heh,,,,,, goddem 😼

[@bjiru_]

ough gotem ouuuugh you goteem so good

[@CaldinovinArchive]

Its more like just *Tube* at this point.

[@bjiru_]

@ hahahahhahaha thats a great way to put it

[@arielchandia2]

True

[@mattslaxativemuffins]

*insert laugh track*

[@JamesR624]

0:39 Ahh, the old Skype incoming message sound. I actually kinda miss classic Skype.

[@bjiru_]

Oh I do too… the emojis, oh and calling on Skype, that was so fun, me and my friends would prank call so many times while In a group call i wish you could call on discord

[@nicolesgaming8917]

Rob Scallon had a whole choose-your-own-adventure series (of course, around music) using annotations. The videos the annotations led to are unlisted, and were only reachable through those annotations, so that sucks.

[@alr3764]

amazingphil did some as well

[@EcchiGamingYT]

Channel customization is what I miss the most. Personally, I wasn't as keen on the new channel layout they brought in around 2011 because it hid most of your background and it got rid of a ton of customization that the original layout had. Also, they integrated banners into the original style layout back in 2009 iirc. I think you had to have over a certain amount of subscribers to have one though. Ngl, the main person I remember having one back then was TheAmazingAtheist.

[@bjiru_]

no your definitely right, I remember definitely seeing Fred with an original youtube channel layout banner, that was definitely the peak customization forsure. I miss it man..

[@OldObscureUnpopularGames]

I still have one very cringey My Chemical Romance custom background I made to fit my custom KZbin layout in 2011- they still had pretty good customization options that late!

[@bjiru_]

@ oh wow I would kill for my files from back then

[@OldObscureUnpopularGames]

@@bjiru_ I can thank myself for putting it in my scraps on deviantArt otherwise it'd have been lost to time

[@cheliou]

annotations were my favorite thing back then, i still remember how i just figured out how to make ones in my videos and when i'm looking back at my old videos they're gone.... hell, they were so useful and opened up a lot of creative opportunities for you!! overall i prefer old youtube design even tho it's considered outdated now but it felt like you're actually browsing something new, something.. futuristic? i'm really sad that a lot of companies are now focusing on updating mobile versions of their products and adapting the pc versions directly from it. as for me it's still better yo use a desktop version of something instead of trying to use my phone

[@bjiru_]

Completely agree, desktop has kinda just been abandoned? It used to be they created the desktop experience, then another one on the side for mobile, now it’s the other way around, only on mobile you can do so much

[@henrikjacobsen2785]

301+ CLUB!

[@bjiru_]

YOU TRUELY ARE!!!!!!!!

[@lvl90dru1d]

now it's 360p club

[@Damiaen.]

As someone born '96 I do remember quite alot of this and... man, things are pretty corporate-bland nowadays in the internet.

[@MrBarcode]

Me too, I kinda hope AI slop brings back web rings

[@Monnimo]

We were blessed with the wild west of the internet, early 2010's it was bigger than the previous age and still was fairly unrestricted

[@TigransTips]

It's not too bad. It could definitely be worse and there is potential for things to change towards the better.

[@normal-mantis]

@@TigransTipswhat keeps you so positive

[@TrashHeapCustodian]

Remember when every font in the world didn't look like some variation of Helvetica? Those were the days

[@JamesR624]

7:55 LOL! This entire channel is a goldmine of amazing editing, wonderful nostalgia, and comedy.

[@kleptomaticagain]

i sure do miss the extinct features youtube

[@bjiru_]

goddamn it... I cant have one smooth upload process hahahah

[@TrashHeapCustodian]

There is actually somewhat of a KZbin Easter egg left over from the google plus days, kind of, if the info I read about it is true: Basically, youtube comments *are* still the google plus comment system, but disconnected from any of the other google plus stuff. One of the quirks of this is that the 👍 button is actually functional and boosts comments as you expect it to, but the 👎 button literally doesn't do anything but change how it looks on the user's end. Why? Because the 👍 button is just the google plus +1 button reskinned and the 👎 is 100% cosmetic just so an up and down can exist and create the illusion that a comment dislike does something, but it doesn't. Now I should say that this is based on hearsay and I've never been able to confirm this through any official channels, but it definitely would explain why the 👎 button doesn't do shit lmao

[@Antateur]

Yeah, I definitely remember these features and easter eggs mentioned in the video. It really makes me sad now how much fun it was back then, especially as a kid on KZbin. Now it's just boring and I find that the button glowing when you say "subscribe" in a video is pretty cool, but that's really about it.

[@OriVeOtesi]

maaaan you really helped remember so many fun things from back when things were fuuuunnnn!!!! thanks you brought me back to my youth

[@xTunio]

2:21 technically, video responses still exist to this day, but not in full video format. You can create a shorts duet against full video, and it'll display under the description

[@bjiru_]

Aaaaaaa that’s very true actually, o never thought about it like that technically they did come back, technically..

[@Breakloaf]

@@bjiru_ you can alse do it to comments on any short not only yours

[@icarusgaming6269]

The way old buffering worked, you could leave your video for as long as you wanted until the whole thing was loaded in order to ensure it would play smoothly. The big brain strategy was to load a video in one tab and watch an already loaded one in another, requiring you to be more deliberate about choosing what you wanted to watch. Now if your internet is on the fritz you're forced to deal with interruptions because videos will only load ahead about 15% no matter how long you leave them

[@UnderscoreAngel]

Hey! i know a lot of people miss most of these features, but did you guys know you could restore some of these to regular KZbin? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Vorapis 2O13 - Restore the 2O13 KZbin Layout (tutorial in my 2nd channel) StarTube (Requires Vorapis 2O13 to work) - Restore ANY old KZbin layout from 2009 all the way to 2020 Restored Annotations for KZbin - Restore Annotations Stylus - Apply Custom CSS to any page

[@bjiru_]

Ooh that is interesting, I actually meant to mention annotations restored as it’s how I got most of this footage, whoops

[@fueyo2229]

WoW thanks

[@UnderscoreAngel]

@@bjiru_ it's alright lmao, there is probably more stuff out there that restore some other features but i probably don't know of, but these are the ones i personally use

[@Unowdvalco]

Might have to check this out, I reign for the days of old youtube layouts

[@DosGamer6601]

i miss the dislike counter the most

[@OfficialAshleyCharlesworthYT]

I created my original KZbin channel in June 2005 and had the opportunity to experience its early features, including KZbin groups, among others. ☺️

[@PowerPuff_cheeeze]

18:00 I wanna back innocent ads only like a small box below, and not even 2 seconds video, or 5 seconds, or minute long “only 99% can pass this level” about some 3 in a row crappy mob game, or 3 minute mediocre rap trap song about love and cars, or 10 minute “business guru” scammer strategy, or 3 hour long film. Gosh I hate these ads so much

[@DaACTUALLYREALReddie]

2000s / 2010s internet was such a fun place, glad i get to experience it in my childhood years :) Pretty sad that anyone born in 2014 or 2015 would never know how it is to experience it.

[@TobyPasta]

Banners and customizing your channel were some of the reasons I got super obsessed with KZbin. In the past I managed to have a few channels partnered with an mcn before the layout changed, and I miss those times dearly. At least it taught me graphic design and making KZbin videos! Fantastic video!

[@bjiru_]

tysm, same! the customization of the internet is a big reason for what drew me too it, it was so fun, so cool

[@dude2992]

Im in 2025 still using my old school username from like 2007. I can't remember exactly how it happened but at one point years ago my account got 2 youtube accounts one with my name and another with my original username and I can pick which one I want to use.

[@bjiru_]

Ah yes I was something similar, accidentally uploaded to the real name account a few times

[@cheeseguy7269]

15:40 fun fact there's a notable exception to this, a video by numberphile explaining the 301 thing, that to this day still reports 301 views!

[@bjiru_]

!!! Was going to mention the numberphile vid, it’s very cool

[@Furious321]

Reminds me of Tom Scott's video whose title displays the current view count at all times. lol

[@zanelightbluesky]

12:39 *the bar will start flashing many colors like a seizure. but for some reason in my pc only the big dot of the bar flashes, maybe is the new magenta avoiding it because of epilepsy*

[@papagunit]

You forgot about the channel comments! I used the KZbin inbox feature, used to talk to so many people. My coolest interaction was sharing music with Kid Cudi right when he was blowing up. Best of times.

[@Kitulous]

bro you brought back memories. I managed to forget that there were channel comments but now that I remember them I don't even remember the time when they were removed

[@papagunit]

@Kitulous it was around the same time the channel layouts were changed, or slightly before then. 2010, +-1. We used to talk so much shit and start beef 😂 or catch strays for absolutely no reason 😂😂 Also, when you requested someone to be your friend, there were different types of friends and reasons why you wanted to be friends! Crazy times

[@retrospektiw]

as soon as I saw the redirect white box annotation I instinctively tried to click it and then felt like a fool afterwards

[@bjiru_]

Hehehehe, you are not the fool… only a refugee of another time…

[@Disturbed_face]

Man when you were so happy for a cheeseburger from your mom I knew I had to subscribe, I felt like I was watching an old friend!

[@bjiru_]

Hehehehheha thank you, it was a good cheeseburger

[@JuanGamer0202]

Funny thing the annotations are still on the data base, if you have any browser extension that somehow renders them then you will see them

[@bjiru_]

I use the extension all the time if its "Annotations Restored" your talking about!!, I was going to talk about it in the vid but forgot, I thought the exact same thing that the data was still contained on the videos page and just wasnt displayed, there is a whole cut bit of me getting very very mad at that the data is still there but they're just turned off, but I got in contact with the creator of the extension to see how it worked, and it actually works from a database that was created when annotations were announced to be going away, there was another extension that would download and save any annotations on any videos to an archive, that the extension today now pulls from, very very cool

[@JuanGamer0202]

@bjiru_ oh that is awesome to know, people actually preserving history for the sake of preserving history, its funny how much I wanted them back given how much I related to your comment on the video, you know... it was often a race to clear them away!

[@bjiru_]

@@JuanGamer0202 we often do neglect the negatives of our nostalgic memories hahaha, but even still, I think there is a medium to be struck between allowing them for creative purposes, and removing them due to spam purposes

[@ExploringNew1]

2:07 that "baa" means "you can't" in my language so it kinda makes sense

[@bjiru_]

Oh interesting!!!!

[@KaijuofSteel]

There was a let's player I used to watch who used the annotations feature as the way to provide commentary about his gameplay - even going as far as to be a sort of roleplay about the game. My favorite walkthrough he made was his Majora's Mask now. I don't remember the channel's name or if it's still even active, but it's kinda sad to think alk the effort put into that went away and now the vids are regular ass gameplay.

[@tsavorix2993]

I miss the Subscription Likes feed, which showed videos liked by your subscribed channels. I found lots of cool stuff with it

[@bjiru_]

aaaaaaaa that is cool! I would love to have something of that today, did not know about it

[@UltraNurture]

Amazing video! I want to share a few of my personal memories with a few of these features just for fun! Annotation interactive games were an amazing feature on the site! I remember a few examples like a Chuggaaconroy Let's Play Interactive and a Luigi's Mansion in real life interactive being very fun for me to go through. But I also remember the annotations just filling up the screen at a rapid rate, I used to watch a Smash machinima called "The Last Tier War" and I remember certain video responses to it just had annotations cover up the entire video at a quick rate. I remember the day Google+ was incorporated into KZbin and the whole "Bob" character just being spammed across many KZbin videos I watched. I did at least like some animations on KZbin that would depict Bob and his army destroying Google+ and all of that. Although not a KZbin feature I do like that the "Do A Barrell Roll" easter egg still works on Google today and it was made around the time a bunch of KZbin easter eggs were implemented as well. I'll always like the fact that Numberphile's KZbin video from 2012 explaining how 301 views worked on KZbin is forever still stuck on 301 views. You did a great job explaining everything in this video and it definitely brought back a lot of great memories, keep up the great work!

[@bjiru_]

Thank you so much for sharing, it makes me feel just a little bit closer to everyone back then, hearing about how we all navigated the web back then and our shared experiences :), the part about the smash machinima really got me, I looooooove machinimas so much, will definitely be a video at some point, thanks again for sharing with me just a bit of your childhood :)

[@UltraNurture]

You’re welcome! Thank you for replying! Smash Machinimas were one of my favorite types of videos to watch back then. I’ll look forward to your video that will shine more light on Machinimas!

[@siqko]

I was also obsessed with pokemon amvs as a little kid, I found a lot of cool bands to listen to through them, haha!

[@bjiru_]

Aaaaa that’s true, I got a lot of songs also through all my amv habits aswell :3

[@CharlesReinmuth]

This is brilliant, love your humor (jumpscare on the buffer was gold), you deserve a million subs. Also, if video responses were a thing, I'd be uploading screen capture of the a-w-e-s-o-m-e trick on desktop for all to see!

[@bjiru_]

aaa thank you so much :3 Im glad it got some people hahaha That is very kind of you also, im sure the mobile warriors out there would be very thankful

[@Ashisliving]

i would like to add that annotations were added to mobile devices around 2016-2017 and then were later removed and replaced with end cards

[@OldObscureUnpopularGames]

I absolutely love seeing intact annotations on videos- I remember they were the standard to fix misinformation or typos in your videos lol

[@womunculus]

i'm surprised i'm not seeing anyone mention bulletins! bulletins finally sort of came back with community posts, but of course it's much different now as a creator-to-audience thing and not a between-friends thing. also, public channel comments, which always goes hand-in-hand with unique usernames in my mind. there was a time where people would go to channels with "official"/"canon" usernames to leave an "i was here" comment, and sometimes saying which one they would go to next to comment the same type of thing as a chain. one of those very pointless and useless old internet things that was weirdly entertaining at the time, probably mostly kids. there also used to be watch party rooms where you could watch videos with a group and chat.

[@JangoPeppers]

There was a feature back then of live chat rooms. I remember this vividly as a kid because I talked to some random girl who told me she cut herself and it scared me so much I never touched it again

[@iambenjaminwild]

Everyone is on about Mario being gay, but does Bruno mars is gay?

[@bjiru_]

AHhEhAHA. . thats true the is was the most discussed in the media, in the few years ago

[@DarthZevrel66]

While I’m on the young side, I was there in the beginning, there was this one channel I liked that uploaded bootlegged copies of 2003 Teen Titans. Channel both escapes my memory and is probably gone. Good times.

[@AlyCatVR]

I'm sorry, I loved every part of your virtual walk down memory lane, but the way you said pinecone was the most amazing part

[@carucath97]

I miss the time when you could put a video on, leave it for a bit and it buffered the whole thing so when you watched it there was no buffering problems which was a GODSEND for people with slow connections but now they only buffer a bit at a time 😢

[@GavinAstraWolf]

I started to use this site back on 2008 and I LOVED KZbin DMs. It was the first time I actually got to talk to other people online. Anytime I saw that email icon have a Red "1" on it I got so excited cause that means someone reached out to me. I understand that they don't have them now cause if you need to get in touch with people outside of KZbin, you do so by other means. But even knowing that, I feel like it would be so much easier to get in contact with some people through a dm system vs going off of the site. Video responses where so cool! I hate that we don't have them anymore! Shout outs to the few bigger channels that let people use them to advertise themselves. Yeah sometimes it would turn into into an advertisement cesspool but I think the feature added more than it took away. When KZbin took it away their official reasoning was cause that videos would barely get views or traffic from being clicked on as a video response. I remember being mad at them taking away that feature. MAN CHANNEL BACKGROUNDS WENT SO HARD! I get why it is no longer a thing but now KZbin feels so safe and boring. A KZbin channel used to be like a profile and it felt like it really reflected the user. I feel like I learned so much about the person from what was on their KZbin Channel. Honestly in some ways they felt like their own personal websites vs just being another part of KZbin. Now all of the channels feel so boring and samey. I remember when users tried to fight back on every change that took away channel customization but sadly it all failed. I wish you could still choose a wallpaper for your channel or something. I feel like you could still have some of the old channel page layout and also just made it look different on mobile or tvs but IDK. There's just no soul now which sucks. Something you didn't talk about is that you used to be able to use channel pages to watch videos. The closest we get to that now is if someone has a channel trailer video but that's it. Before you could watch EVERY video on the person's channel on their channel page. I don't mind that they got rid of this one but I low key miss that a lot. I miss old KZbin man. There are some good things about using KZbin now vs in the past but old KZbin didn't feel corporate back then like it does now.

[@bjiru_]

aaaaa thats actually a great point about the watching videos on a channel, I never really noticed that went away cause yeah you can still have the channel trailer, but you cant actually watch videos in channel anymore. That sucks. The whole name "Channel" I feel like was reflective of that feature, you go to a tv "channel" to watch specific programming on that channel. Was the same with youtube when that was still a thing, that is actually such a shame I never even noticed.

[@cfan6716]

What a walk down memory lane. Thanks for sharing. I remember all of this. I miss channel customization! ❤

[@n-razm]

Another easter egg that doesn't work anymore: during the fidget spinner craze from whatever years (2017ish?) any youtube videos that had "fidget spinner" in the title would have the loading wheel replaced by a spinning fidget spinner. You can find some old videos about it if you search for it.

[@FranfutADC]

someone remember the galaxy like stars that got similar videos like the video you were watching?

[@zeeyusz]

ur literally turning into one of my fav youtubers pls get big and famous

[@bjiru_]

tysm :33, Ill try XD

[@Nightcaat]

Very well done, brought back memories for sure :) Though I believe the death of the snake game wasn’t tied to KZbin losing the buffer dots. It was only available in the Flash player, not the HTML5 player, the former of which was eventually retired. Hard to say for sure though because this is a headache to research

[@flakproof]

When youtube was actually fun.

[@mushroomcrepes]

Anyone remembers the wario ware ad where the youtube page got shook and destroyed? There was also a tippex ad with a hunter and a bear and they would go out of the video frame and pick stuff up from outside. Man youtube have gotten so boring 😑

[@bjiru_]

aaaaa mann those look so cool, I had not heard of them before your comment but man. That is so so fun. Why dont websites do this anymore. We could. We literally could, and more. That is exactly what Im trying to get at, why not??

[@gustavotcb3904]

I don't know what it is about your voice but it took me about 2 minutes of you talking to realise that you don't actually have a Scottish accent.

[@bjiru_]

I have a “bjiru accent”

[@QTLouie]

Under-rated channel

[@Xanit]

I'm surprised not to see this feature listed in the video, and it's one of the most useful I've ever seen.... There used to be a drop-down timeline of videos on top of the video you were currently watching. It would center on the currently playing video, and show you future and previous uploads in relation to it , so you could easily get to the next video that uploader uploaded. They eventually updated that feature to be less useful, moving it to the right, where it would just be a list of all videos the uploader uploaded, starting at most recent. Now, it is a tab that is buried under your recommended videos, and the order of the videos from that uploader shown is completely random. So, I guess it's not a removed feature, mishandled and turned into a shell of its former self

[@bjiru_]

aw man, that does sound really cool, I dont think I ever used it but that would be extremely convenient, especially for like series of videos, that sucks

[@Warpig70]

That random flash of the creatures banner was like a flash of my childhood

[@bjiru_]

So many creatures refugees in the comments it’s so nice to see

[@Jiggy...]

This was a great video, a blast to the past. Another thing I remember fondly was comments directly on your KZbin channel, right at the bottom. While I definitely used DMs sometimes, it was often easier to just comment on someone's channel to get their attention. I think another thing that I miss were the comment sections that didn't have any of the shadowmuting that currently happens. If you type keywords nowadays your comment will just not get posted (not just crude words, but genuinely useful words and sites). You could send someone a link and they could click it, and it was way less restrictive.

[@bjiru_]

riiiiiiiiight channel comments, I literally would love for them to still be around too. I absolutely know what you mean about shadow banning comments and such now too, even with this video, I cut a few "fucks" and "shits" here and there for fear of getting blacklisted in the algorithm, I understand that a lot of bots and malicious people will abuse sending links in comments too, but realllllllllly like you cannot do it at all, it sucks, links are a crucial part to how the internet operates, now you have to instruct someone on how to access a website, what to search, the name of the website. Like now that you mention it its actually obsured we cannot send links on most modern day sites.

[@Kawaiitwo]

The only annotation I remember was on one of those overdramatic Littlest Pet Shop stories. It simply said something along the lines of, “LOL the lps fell down XD,” nothing more. I don’t know why that’s the ONE annotation I can remember, but hey, little Kawaiitron had her priorities straight, I guess.

[@NBDFYS000]

New video, I was waiting for a long time for another of your greatest videos!

[@bjiru_]

thx for your patience

[@NBDFYS000]

@bjiru_ I know, also, could you do a video about the Mp3 2000 music devices one day?

[@bjiru_]

possibly, the story of the ipod, and zunes and all the wacko 3rd party ones is a very cool one

[@NBDFYS000]

@@bjiru_ ok great, hope to see it one day...and I hope ome if your mp3 devices aren't broken or have a annoying nostalgic song.

[@Pochly85]

One thing I wish was still a thing was the hours viewed on your account. I would love to see how much I have watched since back then.

[@Dan_K_Meme]

I loved interactive annotations! Annoying Orange vs. Angry Birds was the shit

[@bjiru_]

ANNOYING ORANGE VS ANGRY BIRDS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[@caitlynchristiansen9141]

I just remember everything but I miss the 5 second button to skip the ad…..it used to show up every time but now it’s either watch 2ads skip an ad or they make you wait a solid 10 seconds before the actual video

[@Gurtopolis]

i mean, the reason they removed messages is the same reason any other big platform kills off interaction methods, predators, it always circles back to predators. thats atleast what i remembered it being iirc.

[@Coco-qy6st]

They removed DMs, channel comments, and friends when they were trying to push Google+. I think stripping these features out of KZbin was to pretend they were new exciting things for Google+.

[@irixperson]

They removed annotations because they didn't function very well on mobile phones, back when people used computers for browsing online and phones for calling people, or in other words, sanity.

[@pezpeculiar9557]

lots of these should be really easy to implement today. It's a real shame they were taken out

[@GangplankPhilly]

is it sad that i got emotional seeing the OG youtube in the first few seconds?

[@bjiru_]

I get emotional when I see all kinds of things of old

[@librarymeg57]

When I was like 12/13, my mom was very anti-social media because stranger danger so I wasn’t allowed to have an account on any of the major social media platforms, but my mom didn’t know about Google+, so I was VERY active in a Ross Lynch fan group on there.

[@TriggerzConnors]

I still miss interactive banner like Eddsworld's channel. I usually grew up watching those and it sucks to look minimalist visual because of mobile phones rises up since 2013-2014. Why not just split up in two, one for pc and one for phones? For pc you got everything! but the phones kept the minimal like recently.

[@bjiru_]

I know right!! why not just have annotations or pc exclusive things, that just, dont work on phone

[@irixperson]

I remember those banners. They were one of the perks of being a KZbin Partner.

[@kirakiraguritchi]

Thanks for nostalgia trip :) Not sure if someone has already mentioned the snow button. It was a feature where you could make snow fall on any video you wanted! I think it was added in winter 2011-2012? I also loved when you could actually dislike the comments, and they were showed in negative like -284 in a red font lol

[@bjiru_]

AAAAAA YOU UNLOCKED BOTH OF THESE FOR ME, I HAVE A FAINT FAINT MEMORY OF SNOW FALLING, AND THE RED NEGATIVE COMMENTS!!! AAAAA!!! IT WAS SO FUN

[@zzyy1934]

oh hey you're that guy that had a floating phone on the background of a video once. I liked it when you did that

[@bjiru_]

Thank you can of campbells soup

[@blabolik]

the only function you showed i only experienced the interactive video thing around 2016

[@joaosegan1820]

damn, I feel old, I really liked KZbin direct messages (And I fought for my life there), I really had friendships with several small content creators (mostly kids or teenagers), but I also used to fight with fucking adults for hours, I was like 11-13 yo I used to love the old KZbin channel layout, it was so over the top and fun, like if you were a big content creator you could have a bigger banner and people were so creative making them. during 2012-2015 I used to spend my whole day on youtube, watching live streams, videos, fighting with random people in the comments section, crazy times

[@bjiru_]

hahaha that's amazing, really talking, weather it be talking or fighting lmao, but really talking with other real people, thats what the internet used to be, but there is so so SO little of it now. Thank you for commenting though, at the very least we can still interact down here :3

[@katastrophixx]

EVERYONE SHUT UP BJIRU POSTED🗣️‼️

[@Johnyknowhow]

very few youtubers have earned the notifications on honor for me... bjiru stands among the proud

[@inxina]

@ yes same!

[@NinetyEight418]

I just wait for the day a good youtube alternative shows up right with these cool extinct youtube features

[@Ralzaabi-n5f]

YIPPE MY GOAT!!!! HE FINALLY REMEMBERS HIS PASSWORD!!!!! (Im gonna love watching this video

[@bjiru_]

HAHAHAhaha, I did, will try not to forget this time